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Back Autumn Bones Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Cover
  2. Roc Books by Jacqueline Carey
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-one
  24. Twenty-two
  25. Twenty-three
  26. Twenty-four
  27. Twenty-five
  28. Twenty-six
  29. Twenty-seven
  30. Twenty-eight
  31. Twenty-nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-one
  34. Thirty-two
  35. Thirty-three
  36. Thirty-four
  37. Thirty-five
  38. Thirty-six
  39. Thirty-seven
  40. Thirty-eight
  41. Thirty-nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-one
  44. Forty-two
  45. Forty-three
  46. Forty-four
  47. Forty-five
  48. Forty-six
  49. Forty-seven
  50. Forty-eight

We went back to sitting in silence and watching the river together. I loved the way it was so vast and open here, sedge grass growing along the verges, and even a few poplars and one big willow tree where it was especially shallow. A slight breeze ruffled the surface of the water. There wasn’t any hint of autumn in the air yet, but it was late enough in the summer that the evening sun hung lower on the horizon, slanted rays gilding the tops of the ripples. A flock of sandhill cranes passed overhead, calling to one another in their wild, chuckling voices.

“Oh, Daisy!” Mom’s voice was hushed. “Look, the willow’s awake!”

Across the water, the great willow tree stirred, raising her graceful, trailing branches in salute, the dryad’s delicate features emerging from the slender trunk. I held my breath as she swayed in the evening breeze. It was the first glimpse of magic I remembered from my childhood. Droplets of water fell from the leaves of her uplifted branches, sparkling in the sunlight.

And then the cranes passed into the horizon and the breeze died. The willow’s branches sank back to droop gracefully into the water, the dryad’s face vanishing once more beneath the bark.

I couldn’t help but think of Cooper—not his remark about fixing him up with a nice dryad, but the bitterness in his voice when he said it was hard to have a good relationship with the world when you were in it but not of it.

And I thought that despite the fact that my life was far from perfect, I was very lucky to have it. Leaning over, I gave my mom a kiss on the cheek.

She smiled at me. “What’s that for?”

I smiled back at her. “Just for being.”

Nine

Although I meant to make an early evening of it, I ended up staying at Mom’s later than I had intended. We were on our second wine cooler when her neighbor Gus lumbered over to offer us a couple of the bratwursts he was grilling, which, by the way, I confirmed he hadn’t made himself. Gus is an ogre, and while he hasn’t eaten anyone in the last century, I have my suspicions regarding a few of the neighborhood cats and dogs over the years.

Anyway, the bratwursts were store-bought, so we invited Gus to join us on the deck, where he sat hunched to approximately the size and shape of a boulder-strewn hillock and gazed adoringly at my mom.

I think it’s sweet that he has a crush on her, and aside from his latent appetite for human flesh, he seems to be a gentle soul.